Musings on science, the Bible, and fantastic literature (and sometimes basketball and other stuff).
God speaks to us through the Bible and the findings of science, and we should listen to both types of revelation.
The title is from Psalm 84:11.
The Wikipedia is usually a pretty good reference. I mostly use the World English Bible (WEB), because is public domain. I am grateful.

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 5

The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man
who has lost everything except his reason. The madman’s explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a purely rational sense
satisfactory. Or, to speak more strictly, the insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable; this may be observed specially in
the two or three commonest kinds of madness. If a man says (for instance) that men have a conspiracy against him, you cannot dispute it except by
saying that all the men deny that they are conspirators; which is exactly what conspirators would do. His explanation covers the facts as much as
yours. Or if a man says that he is the rightful King of England, it is no complete answer to say that the existing authorities call him mad; for if
he were King of England that might be the wisest thing for the existing authorities to do. Or if a man says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no
answer to tell him that the world denies his divinity; for the world denied Christ’s. Nevertheless he is wrong. But if we attempt to trace his
error in exact terms, we shall not find it quite so easy as we had supposed. Perhaps the nearest we can get to expressing it is to say this:
that his mind moves in a perfect but narrow circle. A small circle is quite as infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as infinite,
it is not so large. In the same way the insane explanation is quite as complete as the sane one, but it is not so large.

A Christian is only restricted in the same sense that an atheist is
restricted. He cannot think Christianity false and continue to be a Christian; and the atheist cannot think atheism false and continue to be
an atheist. But as it happens, there is a very special sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism. Mr. McCabe thinks me
a slave because I am not allowed to believe in determinism. I think Mr. McCabe a slave because he is not allowed to believe in fairies. But if we
examine the two vetoes we shall see that his is really much more of a pure veto than mine. The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a
considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless
machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle.Orthodoxy, first published in 1908, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here.Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.